The figure of Angrboda is that of a female Jotun, or giant; she is seen as tall, immensely strong, and very assertive. She also brings forth powerful children – Fenris, the great wolf who nearly ate the world; the Midgard Serpent that surrounds it, and Hel, the Goddess of Death. Unfortunately, she was secretly killed by Odin, who feared that she and Loki would populate the entire world with such creatures and thus overthrow his regime. It is said that all Loki found of her was her ashen heart, burnt like the heartwood of an oak tree.

43. A heart ate Loki,— | in the embers it lay, And half-cooked found he | the woman’s heart;— With child from the woman | Lopt soon was, And thence among men | came the monsters all.

44. The sea, storm-driven, | seeks heaven itself, O’er the earth it flows, | the air grows sterile; Then follow the snows | and the furious winds, For the gods are doomed, | and the end is death.

45. Then comes another, | a greater than all, Though never I dare | his name to speak; Few are they now | that farther can see Than the moment when Othin | shall meet the wolf.

* * *

Freyja spake: 46. “To my boar now bring | the memory-beer, So that all thy words, | that well thou hast spoken,

[43. Nothing further is known of the myth here referred to, wherein Loki (Lopt) eats the cooked heart of a woman and thus himself gives birth to a monster. The reference is not likely to be to the serpent, as, according to Snorri (Gylfaginning, 34), the wolf, the serpent, and Hel were all the children of Loki and Angrbotha.

44. Probably an omission, perhaps of considerable length, before this stanza. For the description of the destruction of the world, cf. Voluspo, 57.

45. Cf. Voluspo, 65, where the possible reference to Christianity is noted. With this stanza the fragmentary “short Voluspo” ends, and the dialogue between Freyja and Hyndla continues.

46. Freyja now admits the identity of her boar as Ottar, who [fp. 232] with the help of the “memory-beer” is to recall the entire genealogy he has just heard, and thus win his wager with Angantyr.]

p. 232

The third morn hence | he may hold in mind, When their races Ottar | and Angantyr tell.”

[47. Heithrun: the she-goat that stands by Valhall (cf. Grimnismol, 25), the name being here used simply of she-goats in general, in caustic comment on Freyja’s morals. Of these Loki entertained a similar view; cf. Lokasenna, 30.

48. Oth: cf. stanza 6 and note, and Voluspo, 25 and note. Lines 3-4, abbreviated in the manuscript, are very likely repeated here by mistake.

49. The manuscript repeats once again lines 3-4 of stanza 47 as the last two lines of this stanza. It seems probable that two lines have been lost, to the effect that Freyja will burn the giantess alive “If swiftly now | thou dost not seek, / And hither bring | the memory-beer.”]

No one is certain why practicing seiðr should carry such a strong condemnation of masculinity with it. It has been speculated that seiðr was considered unmanly because it allowed a man to strike at enemies with magic or poison, or perhaps that the rituals attending seiðr included some sexual rites in which the seiðr-worker was the recipient of sexual attentions. It is more likely that the seiðr-practitioner was at times undergoing spirit possession or even possession by the gods, as happens in voudoun. By allowing one’s self to be “ridden,” and to allow another spirit or entity control over one’s body, one totally gave up control and became passive, the antithesis of the expected ethic for masculinity.
Viking Answer Lady (via aomiarmster)

In the Lokasenna tale, Odinn verbally abuses Loki for allowing himself to be impregnated, calling him argr – a crude form of abuse inferring that one takes the passive role in intercourse with another man. The noun is ergi – and there is the suggestion that anyone repeatedly & willingly doing so is regarded differently from other males. However, the Germanic historian Folke Strom says that ergi refers to male practitioner of seidr – that it was both the passive role in sodomy & the receptive relationship to the gods was what caused a man to be looked upon, or identify himself as ergi. Morever, in the case of Loki, it is this ‘impregnation’ which has given birth to Sleipnir, Odinn’s eight-legged steed. Loki is interesting in this respect, as the ambiguous relationship between male-oriented and female-oriented magics are most obvious in him.
Phil Hine